News broke last month that Todd Phillips was developing a John Belushi biopic — the latest in a long string of efforts to thrust the “Saturday Night Live” funnyman’s life in front of the camera — and the “Hangover” director was anything but pleased.

“That’s something that gets released by some agent of somebody and then you get asked questions about it,” Phillips told MTV News, in what we believe are his first public comments about the project. “It’s in its very nascent stages.” But ever the good sport, Phillips expanded on what has been reported in the trades.

The biopic will likely not have the easily digestible character arc that we’ve seen in recent Oscar-bait biopics and the man who eventually plays Belushi could be either a household name or an unknown actor.

“Our goal is not to do a traditional biopic approach with it that people expect, whether you’re talking about ‘Walk the Line’ or ‘Ray.’ All good movies, but our goal is not to make that typical biopic,” Phillips explained. “We want to make a movie that, if John Belushi saw it, he would be happy that it captured his spirit. Sometimes I feel that they don’t entirely capture the spirit of the person they’re about. Our goal is to capture the spirit of Belushi, not necessarily make a straight-ahead biopic.”

At the moment, Steve Conrad (“The Pursuit of Happyness”) is still working on a story treatment with Phillips and hasn’t even begun work on the actual script. As Phillips puts it, “Steve Conrad, who’s a f–king brilliant writer, is working on a story for it.”

Now, it’s all well and good to assert that you’re not going make a traditional biopic, but what exactly does that mean? Perhaps a more compressed timeline, one that spans years or even months rather then decades?

“It could mean that,” he said. “There are a lot of ways to interpret it. One of the reasons I’m being a bit vague is because we haven’t nailed it yet. It’s in early stages. I’m really talking about the very television-narrative approach that a lot of biopics take. We don’t want to do that. We’re trying to take a very renegade approach to who I think was one of the most renegade comedy actors of all time. It’s about nailing the script down at this point,” he said. “If it’s a new face or if it’s someone people are familiar with, we haven’t figured that out yet. It’s not even so much about nailing down the script as the renegade approach to a renegade actor.”

And just who might play that renegade? A bunch of names have been floated in the press — including Jack Black, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen and Zach Galifianakis, one of Phillips’ frequent collaborators — but at this point it’s simply too early in the process for Phillips to speculate. (Source)

When asked for probably the 4,543rd time about how he got into shape to play a superhero, Seth Rogen didn’t even try to bring the funny.

“I dieted a little and worked out. It’s an answer that’s so boring, I’m not even going to try and make it interesting,” Rogen said while speaking before a roomful of reporters about “The Green Hornet” at Comic-Con International: San Diego. Rogen is one of the funniest guys in Hollywood in any kind of interview setting, but he had bigger fish to fry at that point than poking fun at his workout routine.

His main objective at Comic-Con was to reverse the pessimism surrounding the long-in-the-works ‘Hornet’ and get people excited about seeing a film he’s devoted more than three years of his life to developing as star, co-writer and executive producer.

“The Green Hornet” movie has endured more adversity than the character ever faced in the radio shows, film serials, TV programs and comic books he’s starred in since he was created, back in the 1930s, by George Trendle and Fran Striker.

First came all the changes in the cast and crew list. Stephen Chow was first onboard to direct and co-star, but eventually was replaced in the director’s chair by Michel Gondry. Nicholas Cage was cast as the villain for about five minutes before he left and Christoph Waltz was tapped for the role.

The script reportedly underwent numerous rewrites, and the film’s release date kept getting pushed back. It’s now locked in for January 2011, not the greatest indicator of studio confidence, but at least it’s a firm date. Getting shuffled across the calendar though, hurt “The Green Hornet” in the arena of public perception. The movie also appears to have been damaged as much by plain bad timing more than anything else.

“I had no idea who the Green Hornet was,” admitted Waltz, the Academy Award-winning scene-stealer from ‘Inglorious Basterds.’ “I am not a comics-educated person.”

The actor is a well-known comic book aficionado, who in a recent interview with the L.A. Times, admitted he’s more of a Marvel guy than a DC fan.

“I’m at the comic book shop just about every week. I read very few books without pictures of men in very tight clothes,” he said. “It’s weird that everybody knows who Deadpool is [now]. It’s weird that everyone’s talking about the things me and my friends talk about,” he said. “But it’s cool, and its fun that we’re able to participate in it.”

That chance to finally do a movie about capes was ultimately what drew Rogen and Goldberg, his longtime writing partner, to the Hornet’s nest. In “The Green Hornet,” Rogen plays Britt Reid, a carefree rich party-boy who gets a rude awakening when his wealthy newspaper mogul father dies. He gets inspired to do something more than just go clubbing, so he decides to use his financial resources to fight crime. The clips screened in San Diego displayed a markedly lighter tone than the typical superhero movie. It’s not camp or parody, as Gondry pointed out. Just a different take on the genre, which was necessitated by the fact that its star happens to be a very funny guy.

“It became very clear [early on] that there was no way this could be a serious movie. The Green Hornet isn’t even that dark a character,” Rogen noted. “His parents weren’t murdered. He’s more of a lighter character. It was more about capturing the fun of being a superhero. We wanted to write a superhero film and felt Green Hornet and Kato’s relationship was interesting,” he said.

Adding to the lighthearted tone is the fact that, despite the weight loss, Rogen isn’t exactly the first person you think of to star in a superhero movie.

”I think [co-star] Cameron Diaz could kick the s&*! out of me. She could whoop my ass pretty good,” said Rogen, who aside from a few scenes in the stoner action-comedy “Pineapple Express,” has never done action film work before.

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The Stand Up to Cancer fundraising television event is going to be star-studded. The telethon, taking place Sept. 10, will include a mix of Hollywood celebs, athletes and journalists. Among the many who have signed on to appear are cancer survivors Christina Applegate, Lance Armstrong, Michael C. Hall, Maura Tierney, Robin Roberts, Marissa Jaret Winokur, Fran Drescher, Survivor winner Ethan Zohn and Elizabeth Edwards.

Joining them for the big night will be Reese Witherspoon, Queen Latifah, Laura Linney, Seth Rogen, Sally Field, Terrence Howard and even the Simpsons.

Executive produced by Laura Ziskin, the program will be hosted by Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer and Brian Williams and will be telecast live without commercials on our very own E!, The Style Network and G4 as well as ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and HBO, among other channels. (Source)

The perpetually busy Seth Rogen just lined up his next gig. He’ll voice the lead character in DreamWorks Animation’s “Boo U.,” The Hollywood Reporter reveals. The character isn’t named, but he’ll play a ghost who is sent back to school because he’s no good at scaring little kids. Sounds like “Monsters Inc.” with a “Back to School” twist.

Rogen is no stranger to animated features. He voiced Mantis in “Kung Fu Panda” — another DreamWorks joint — a role to which he’ll be returning for next summer’s “Kung Fu Panda: The Kaboom of Doom.” More recently, Rogen voiced the blob creature B.O.B. in “Monsters & Aliens.” “Lilo & Stitch 2″ and “Igor” director Tony Leondis will helm the flick, which will hit screens in 3-D. No release date is listed. (Source)

This hasn’t been confirmed yet, but sources are saying Seth Rogen is attached to star alongside Barbra Streisand in the film, “My Mother’s Curse.” “My Mother’s Curse” is comedy scheduled for a 2012 release.

An inventor and his mom hit the road together so he can sell his latest invention.

Jay Baruchel has said that his upcoming comedy with Seth Rogen Jay And Seth Vs. The Apocalypse will be a “polarising” and “offensive” movie. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice star Baruchel, who is penning the project with Rogen and Evan Goldberg, revealed to DS that the trio are “writing it right now and I think we’ll be shooting it next year”.

Apocalypse is a spinoff of the web short that sees Baruchel and Rogen sharing a home together as the only survivors of Armageddon. According to Baruchel, Rogen is planning to make his directorial debut with the film but the project has been attracting interest form other filmmakers.

He said: “I think [directing is] something he’s thinking of. There’s other people, who are pretty incredible and pretty special, out of respect I won’t mention them but there’s people that have told us that if we want them to be involved there’ll be involved. Pretty, pretty awesome people. Either way we’ll get to make the thing and either way it’ll be f**king awesome.”

Asked if the duo will encounter other survivors, Baruchel replied: “There’s something really, really cool… there’s a star over here [in the UK] who’s probably going to be in it with us. I’ll say also the one thing I want to do, the recurring gag I want in the movie, is corpse cameos… mega-stars to be corpses. I want to be running and trip over a body and go, ‘F**k, Will Smith is dead! No, they got Beckham!’ That’s my contribution! If we get to make the movie we’ve been talking about, it’ll be one of the more polarising, offensive movies of the last decade.”

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Daniel Radcliffe is in talks to star in comedy horror movie Jay And Seth Vs The Apocalypse. Knocked Up star Seth Rogen and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice actor Jay Baruchel are remaking the short they made in film school for the big screen – and the Harry Potter star is rumoured to have asked to audition for the lead role.

A source revealed: “Daniel Radcliffe is keen to get involved.”

Jay was asked about the rumours at a junket for The Sorcerer’s Apprentice at the weekend and said: “No comment. I can neither confirm, nor deny that.”

Jay and Seth made the short film back in 2007 at film school with friend Jason Stone and it is now set to be made into a 3D feature film, set for release in 2012.

A spokeswoman for Daniel said: “Daniel is confirmed to star in Hammer Films’ forthcoming feature The Woman in Black which films this autumn and then in 2011 he will transfer to Broadway to star in the musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. He has no other firm commitments beyond this point at this time.”

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One of the more hotly-anticipated films coming out of Comic-Con this year was the already hyped follow-up to Adventureland for director Greg Mottola, the sci-fi road trip film, Paul. The film stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, and we now have our first look at the film’s titular character, Paul, an alien voiced by Seth Rogen.

For the past 60 years, an alien named Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen) has been kept at a top-secret military base. For reasons unknown, the space-traveling alien decides to escape the compound and hop on the first vehicle out of town—a rented RV containing Earthlings Graeme Willy (Simon Pegg) and Clive Collings (Nick Frost).

Chased by federal agents and the fanatical father of a young woman that they accidentally kidnap, Graeme and Clive hatch a fumbling escape plan to return Paul to his mother ship. And as two nerds struggle to help, one little green man might just take his fellow outcasts from misfits to intergalactic heroes.

ShockYa have posted two new images from Michel Gondry’s The Green Hornet, which stars Seth Rogen as the titular character, along with Cameron Diaz, Jay Chou, Christoph Waltz and Michael Pena.

Britt Reid is the son of LA’s most prominent and respected media magnate and perfectly happy to maintain a directionless existence on the party scene — until his father mysteriously dies, leaving Britt his vast media empire. Striking an unlikely friendship with one of his father’s more industrious and inventive employees, Kato, they see their chance to do something meaningful for the first time in their lives: fight crime. But in order to do this, they decide to become criminals themselves — protecting the law by breaking it, Britt becomes the vigilante The Green Hornet as he and Kato hit the streets.

The Green Hornet is directed by Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) from a screenplay written by Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg (Superbad, Pineapple Express), based on the “Green Hornet” radio series created by George W. Trendle. The film is released January 14th 2011

“The Green Hornet” is not a drug comedy, but star and co-writer Seth Rogen knows he will have to remind people of that again and again between now and the film’s January release.

“It might be the only movie we have without any explicit pot references,” Rogen said, referring to himself and writing partner Evan Goldberg, a tandem that has given the world the bong-hit cinema of “Superbad” and “The Pineapple Express.” This film’s emerald title led to a lot of hemp wisecracks from the cast and crew.

“Yes, there were a lot of jokes flying around the set about the name of the movie — jokes that the studio begs me not to make. But I will.” Rogen, with a wink, added that his masked man and Kato might go the Cheech and Chong route for “Green Hornet 2.” “If they let us do an R-rated sequel, maybe we can go there: ‘The Greener Hornet.’“

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